'The empty court is locked up. If injustice it has communed,with it and all misery it has caused could only be locked up,and the whole burnt away in a great funeral pyre, so much the better…'
— Bleak House, Charles Dickens, 1852

The judicial system of Europe is geared towards the class system. The police service, still in its infancy, is dreadfully inefficient (sometimes through no fault of its own) and in some areas, corruption is high. In addition, the police do not have the manpower to properly investigate as many reports as they would like. The same lack of manpower means that policemen dare not enter the poorer sections of the slums. When resentment of authority is running high, a blue uniform is a prime target.